Daily Archives: July 17, 2012

Post navigation

This weeks Top Ten Tuesday from The Broke and The Bookish is the Top Ten Books for people who like X book. I have chosen Noughts & Crosses by Malorie Blackman. The books I am recommending that you may like if you like this ones are not all one that I think are written similarly but other books that I think challenge the way we think about our society just as I think this book does.

Two young people are forced to make a stand in this thought-provoking look at racism and prejudice in an alternate society.

Sephy is a Cross — a member of the dark-skinned ruling class. Callum is a Nought — a “colourless” member of the underclass who were once slaves to the Crosses. The two have been friends since early childhood, but that’s as far as it can go. In their world, Noughts and Crosses simply don’t mix. Against a background of prejudice and distrust, intensely highlighted by violent terrorist activity, a romance builds between Sephy and Callum — a romance that is to lead both of them into terrible danger. Can they possibly find a way to be together?

In this gripping, stimulating and totally absorbing novel, black and white are right and wrong.

1. Oh My Goth by Gena Showalter

Jade Leigh is a nonconformist who values individuality above all else. She has a small group of like-minded Goth friends who wear black, dabble in the dark arts, and thrive outside the norm. They’re considered the “freaks” of their high school. But when Jade’s smart mouth lands her in trouble—again—her principal decides to teach her a lesson she’ll never forget.

Taken to a remote location where she is strapped down and sedated, Jade wakes up in an alternate universe where she rules the school. But her best friends won’t talk to her, and the people she used to hate are all Goth. Only Clarik, the mysterious new boy in town, operates outside all the cliques. And only Mercedes, the Barbie clone Jade loathes, believes that Jade’s stuck in a virtual reality game—because she’s stuck there, too, now living the life of a “freak.” Together, they realize they might never get back to reality… and that even if they do, things might never be the same

As with Noughts & Crosses this book will make you think about how we judge people on how they look. It is about how we choose to dress at high school though but I think although my of a action book still shows that we should learn about the person not what they look like.

2. Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Everybody gets to be supermodel gorgeous. What could be wrong with that? Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can’t wait. Not for her license — for turning pretty. In Tally’s world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. In just a few weeks Tally will be there.

But Tally’s new friend Shay isn’t sure she wants to be pretty. She’d rather risk life on the outside. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world and it isn’t very pretty. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. The choice Tally makes changes her world forever.

Is also challenging our societies obsession with looks. It is a world were everyone becomes pretty at 16 so we are all the same. However I think it makes you realise how ubsurd it is that we value looks so much that we put our lives at risk.

3. Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma

She is pretty and talented – sweet sixteen and never been kissed. He is seventeen; gorgeous and on the brink of a bright future. And now they have fallen in love. But… they are brother and sister.

Seventeen-year-old Lochan and sixteen-year-old Maya have always felt more like friends than siblings. Together they have stepped in for their alcoholic, wayward mother to take care of their three younger siblings. As defacto parents to the little ones, Lochan and Maya have had to grow up fast. And the stress of their lives—and the way they understand each other so completely—has also also brought them closer than two siblings would ordinarily be. So close, in fact, that they have fallen in love. Their clandestine romance quickly blooms into deep, desperate love. They know their relationship is wrong and cannot possibly continue. And yet, they cannot stop what feels so incredibly right. As the novel careens toward an explosive and shocking finale, only one thing is certain: a love this devastating has no happy ending.

Not about looks but still challenging society Forbidden is also a story about unconventional love. Written like Noughts & Crosses the chapters alternate between characters and provide a powerful love story with a strong message and emotional ending.

4. The Hunger Games Triology by Suzanne Collins

In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV.

Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister’s place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before—and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that will weigh survival against humanity and life against love

Is a story about challenging the government, survival and love. Although in a dystopian society Katniss wants to change the way certain groups are treated just like the groups in Noughts & Crosses and it leads her into a dangerous life.

5. The Declaration by Gemma Malley

In the year 2140, it is illegal to be young.

Children are all but extinct.

The world is a better place.

Longevity drugs are a fountain of youth.

Sign the Declaration, agree not to have children and you too can live forever. Refuse, and you will live as an outcast. For the children born outside the law, it only gets worse – Surplus status.

Not everyone thinks Longevity is a good thing, but you better be clear what side you’re on. . . . Surplus Anna is about to find out what happens when you can’t decide if you should cheat the law or cheat death

Is about the consequences of discovering the secret to living forever. This is something that a lot of people want and we are already living for longer but this book shows what happens when there are too many people and it is children that are deemed the problem.

6. Bumped by Megan McCafferty

In 2036 New Jersey, when teens are expected to become fanatically religious wives and mothers or high-priced Surrogettes for couples made infertile by a widespread virus, 16-year-old identical twins Melody and Harmony find in one another the courage to believe they have choices.

Will make you see teen pregnancy in a whole new light. In a society where adults pay teenagers to get pregnant for them love is compromised and the main characters are fighting to be able to be who they want to be not just a womb for rental.

7. My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picout

Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate — a life and a role that she has never challenged…until now. Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister — and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves.

Tells the story of a family when one daughter sues her parents to stop having to help her dying sister. Also written like Noughts & Crosses with alternating chapters it has a similar ability to capture your emotions and will also make you think about how we will do anything for our children.

8. Matched by Ally Condie

Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her: what to read, what to watch, what to believe. So when Xander’s face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is her ideal mate… until she sees Ky Markham’s face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black.

The Society tells her it’s a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she’s destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can’t stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society’s infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she’s known and a path that no one else has dared to follow

Like Noughts & Crosses is about going against what is expected to be right and falling in love with someone you are not suppose to. When the government decides everything about your life including who you will spend the rest of your life with it your whole life can be turned upside down due to what appears to be a simple technical error that leads to real feelings.

9. Slated by Teri Terry

Kyla’s memory has been erased,her personality wiped blank,her memories lost for ever.

She’s been Slated.

The government claims she was a terrorist, and that they are giving her a second chance – as long as she plays by their rules. But echoes of the past whisper in Kyla’s mind. Someone is lying to her, and nothing is as it seems. Who can she trust in her search for the truth?

This book provides a dramatic solution to dealing with criminals in society. What at first might seem like an appealing solution to a problem we are having to deal with this book provides the dangers that could occur. It includes like Malorie Blackmans book a ‘terrorist’ group that disagree with how society if being disciplined and the impact that has on our main characters life could be just as dangerous as it was to Callum’s.

10. Looking for JJ by Anne Cassidy

Three children walked away from the cottages on the edge of town toward Berwick Waters. Later that day, only two of them came back. Alice Tully knows exactly what happened that spring day six years ago, though it’s still hard for her to believe it. She’ll never be able to forget, even though she’s trying to lead a normal life—she has a job, friends, and a boyfriend whom she adores. But Alice’s past is dangerous, and violent, and sad… and it’s about to rip her new life apart.

Will make you think about how you would feel if you were in the position of having to start your life again as someone new. It will make you decide if you think people who commit very dangerous crimes should be given a second chance, particularly if they offended as children. It is again looking at dealing with crime in society but unlike Callum JJ has a chance to live and prove she can be a useful member of society again.